11 rounds around the world across racetracks, ovals and street circuits – and it all comes down to this, a 33-lap race around the streets of Marrakesh to decide the 2023 eVirtual World Championship. Mathershaw’s Jules Barclay enters today on the verge of joining the elite class of tier 1 champions, but he has it all to do from 21st as Formation’s Maximillian Thunstrom starts from pole, which draws the two level on points with a race to go. Downton’s Oleksandr Zozulya needs a miracle from 3rd, but while Sam Hudson’s title hopes look all but done from 15th, the Lada driver is still fighting to win his team the team’s title, as today they start 20 points ahead of Formation, with both Lada’s mired in the midfield but Formation’s Jochem van Snelheid down in 23rd. With the sun out and the heat palpable, it was no surprise hards were the favoured choice among the drivers, but that didn’t stop some teams from taking a long shot. Stefansson, Maxwell and Brynildsen (from 4th – 6th) took the softs, along with de la Fuente, Christodoulou and the two Ceberus cars. Oliversson, Thunder, Kasami, Kruuda, Holzberg, Zvironas, Raatikainen and Garcia were the medium runners. Part 1As the lights went out, Thunstrom was away and gone, clear of the squabbling Roberts and Zozulya. By the end of the first lap, the Swede was already a second and a half clear, the gap only growing from there on as Zozulya nailed Roberts at turn 11 to take a distant second. Further back, a poor start for Vocquelin saw him drop to 12th while Hudson made up crucial ground to reach 11th in the opening laps – albeit almost a pit stop behind Thunstrom. The soft and medium runners didn’t have much of a pace advantage and both were in on lap 7 and 8 respectively, with the main change being Brynildsen jumping Maxwell at the pit stops. On track, Vocquelin was on a charge as he repassed Hudson and put in a lovely move on the outside of Bergkvist at turn 3, with Hudson also getting past a lap later. However, title leader Barclay was still dead last of the hard runners, while in the fight for the team’s title, van Snelheid was just ahead of Barclay, but Lada’s Kruuda was well down the order with the other medium runners. The hard runners were in on lap 11 with minimal fuss, along with a slow-moving Garcia whose season ended earlier with a hydraulic issue. The top three retained their positions – with Thunstrom still well clear of Zozulya. Vocquelin’s strong end to his first stint saw him rejoin in 5th, just behind Stefansson and ahead of Brynildsen, but Hudson rejoined well down the pack in 12th, with Bergkvist for company. The Frenchman was looking inspired, as he made light work of the soft shod Stefansson and caught Roberts napping at the turn 10 hairpin to move into 3rd at half race distance. The soft and medium runners had done their second stops by now, with a quick turnaround for Brynildsen allowing the Norwegian to jump past Stefansson, while a slow stop for Maxwell, combined with traffic, dropped him behind Oliversson when the Swede replaced his medium tyres. But up front, Thunstrom was making a mockery of his rivals – Zozulya had no response in 2nd, Hudson had lost out to Bergkvist and was barely holding 6th ahead of Addison and van Snelheid, while Barclay was a miserable 15th. Part 2Not satisfied with 3rd, Vocquelin was now hunting down Zozulya, and was catching rapidly when he clipped the inside of the second part of the turn 4/5 chicane, breaking his track rod and ending his race in disappointing fashion. It put Roberts back into the podium positions, while behind there was a massive fight – Hudson looked to the inside of Bergkvist at turn 1, while Addison swung to the outside to make it three abreast into the corner. They ran deep and Hudson emerged ahead of Addison, but van Snelheid did the lot of them on the inside, picking up three places as the rest squabbled and put Formation in pole position for the team’s title. By this point, the hards were clearly the best strategy as they completed their last pit stop on lap 22 – drama free for the front runners while a rapid pit stop by Downton got Matthews ahead of Addison and Bergkvist. The soft runners were well out of the picture by now, but Oliversson put in a strong 3rd stint on the mediums to rejoin 9th after his last pitstop on lap 24, ahead of Einarsson with an eye towards the hard runners ahead, while Holzberg was also due an early shower when his power steering failed. With Thunstrom well putting in one of the most dominating drives in eV, all eyes were on van Snelheid and Hudson for the team’s title. A lovely dummy move by Hudson into turn 11 put him into 4th but 1st and 5th for Formation was still enough to beat Lada by 3 points with 5 laps left on the board. No one told this to van Snelheid, however, as the Dutchman launched an audacious move on Hudson at turn 10 from well back – there was contact as the Formation made tyre to tyre contact with the Lada and both went wide, allowing Matthews through to nab two more places, but crucially van Snelheid emerged ahead of Hudson, all but ending Lada’s hopes. But there was no such drama for Thunstrom, who came across the line to record his second win of the season and take the title of 2023 eVirtual World Champion, his first title since winning FV3 back in 2017 which will give the Swede a huge confidence boost as he moves to Kowhai in FV. Zozulya had no answer for the new champion but 2nd was enough to make him vice champion once again and Downton third ahead of Mathershaw, while there were celebrations galore as Roberts and SRT took their maiden podium in 3rd place, a huge moment for the German team. Matthew ended up making up 17 places in the race thanks to a combination of strategy, excellent pit crew work from Downton and some candid driving, just ahead of van Snelheid who’s 5th confirmed Formation Competition as champions, the team’s second title in eVirtual. Hudson was furious in 6th with Lada gutted to miss out on the title, though there was no further action on van Snelheid’s move. Addison’s 7th wasn’t enough to keep Hyundai ahead of SRT in the standings but picked up good points for the team, while Oliversson nailed Bergkvist on the penultimate lap to finish 8th, the only non-hard runner in the top 10. Einarsson rounded out the points scorers ahead of a gutted Barclay. So, after 12 races, it’s Maximillian Thunstrom who comes out on top after winning the season opener and closer, but that only tells half the story – any one of Barclay, Zozulya and Hudson could have been champion. With Thunstrom joining Kowhai and Barclay joining Cyber, the two will look to continue their career long rivalry into FV, while Zozulya and Hudson’s hunt for an eV title continues. Final ClassificationChampionship Standings
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2024
Categories |